


picture the bright lights

by thistidalwave



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 23:19:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conor and Niall are adorable pop star boyfriends - or something. Maybe not that whole properly dating thing. Conor's not sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	picture the bright lights

**Author's Note:**

> adorable pop star boyfriends like i said i would xoxo it's almost 5 AM

They meet, naturally, because they’re both pop stars. 

The relationship thing or whatever, though. That’s--well, that’s because of everything else.

-

It all hinges on Nando’s when you really take it down to the basics. Niall has long said that he could never date anyone who doesn’t like Nando’s (and, honestly, he’d have trouble even being _friends_ with someone who was so terribly _wrong_ ), and if Conor could, he would live in a Nando’s. Any one would do. He’d just need a sleeping bag and a spot under a counter in the kitchen and he’d be set for life. 

When he’d told Niall about this fantasy, Niall had nodded solemnly and said he’d be right there with Conor. And then insisted that they go out to Nando’s _right now._

Conor thinks that might have actually been when he fell in love with Niall, because everyone else he’s ever told that has laughed awkwardly and given him some major side eye.

(And then they meet up at V Festival and there’s drunk making out and. Well.)

The Nando’s thing somehow becomes just that--a _thing._ Whenever they’re both free (a devastatingly rare event, but whatever, they’re pop stars), they don their black ski masks and conduct a covert operation to get themselves to the nearest Nando’s, generally involving about twenty secret service agents and a lot of really slick ninja moves.

(Okay, it’s not that dramatic, but they agree that it would be a lot more exciting and less stupid if it were.)

Conor gets very attached to these not-dates to the point where eating by himself, without Niall laughing with his mouth full on the other side of the table, is just depressing and lonely. 

So he calls Niall and talks to him and makes him laugh, and when he hangs up he always feels better about his life as a whole, and then somehow _that_ becomes a thing, too. Like, the kind of thing he does daily and not just when he’s crying into his meal for one.

(It’s not a problem at all, really, except that Conor is kind of confused about whether they’re properly dating or not. But they’re young and famous and having fun. He figures that’s all that really matters.)

-

13:21 Niall Horan | _Call u back in 20 am in meeting x_

13:24 maynards wine gums | _Don’t bother, I’m invading your house and eating all your food. Free until day after tomorrow! :) x_

13:33 Niall Horan | _Will bring home nandos then!_

-

“CHICKEN,” Niall declares, banging his way into his flat. Conor starts and drops the TV remote, disguising the movement by jumping to his feet and throwing himself at Niall.

“Nandoooooooo’s.” He relieves Niall of the bags of take away he’s carrying. “My one true love. I’ve missed you,” he coos at the food.

“Oi, get a room,” Niall says, but he’s smiling and it’s adorable, so Conor puts the bags down on the coffee table and drags Niall in so that he can kiss him hello. Niall leans into Conor, pulling him down with his hand around the back of his neck. 

“Missed you, too, I guess,” Conor says when they break apart for a moment, and Niall smacks him in the side of the head.

“You _guess_ ,” he scoffs. “Please.” He pushes at Conor’s shoulders until he stumbles backward, backs of his knees knocking into the sofa before he falls onto it, and then Niall is climbing into his lap, tangling his hands into Conor’s hair, and kissing him soundly. Conor wraps his own hands into the back of Niall’s jumper and kisses back. It’s a good few minutes before either of them see fit to do anything else, but eventually Niall pulls back and leans his forehead against Conor’s. “The food’s going to get cold.”

“And I was very serious about missing my one true love,” Conor says. 

Niall groans and lets his head fall to Conor’s shoulder. “But I don’t want to move. Can the food magically come here?”

“Aren’t your leprechaun skills up to snuff? Come on, Niall, you’re letting me down.”

Niall snorts. “I have no idea why I like you.” He slides off Conor’s lap, though, and hands Conor a container of chicken before settling in next to him on the sofa, one leg slung across Conor’s thighs. “What’ve you even been watching?”

“Uh, some television film,” Conor says around a mouthful of chicken. “I don’t know, I was half asleep.”

Niall blinks lazily at the screen for a bit. “Is that Emma Watson?” he says finally.

Conor doesn’t know whether or not it’s Emma Watson, and he finds he’s not really bothered either way because Niall is infinitely more interesting to watch, even when all he’s doing is sitting on the sofa eating Nando’s. Maybe especially when he’s sitting on the sofa eating Nando’s. 

Conor looks thoughtfully down at his food, then back up at Niall, then at his food again. “I honestly can’t decide whether it was actually worth it to stop kissing so that we could eat,” he says, because he feels like this is a debate Niall should be made aware of.

Niall looks over at him and grins. “Compliments, compliments,” he says. “How much’ve you got left?” Conor tilts his box so Niall can see, and Niall hums thoughtfully. “I’ve got about the same. Race you to see who can finish first,” he says and wastes no time waiting for Conor to respond before shoving a forkful of chicken in his mouth, raising an eyebrow at Conor as he chews.

In the end it’s so close that they both end up insisting they’re the winners, and it turns into a wrestling match on the living room floor, which turns into Conor letting Niall press his wrists into the carpet and kiss him until they’re both breathless, which ends with them tangled up in the sheets on Niall’s bed wearing significantly less clothes and giggling helplessly at each other.

-

10:21 Niall Horan | _Wake up and save meeee!_

10:23 maynards wine gums | _wtf._

10:27 Niall Horan | _The microwave is gona kill me conor help_

-

“The fuck are you doing?” Conor asks from the doorway of Niall’s kitchen, rubbing at his eyes. 

“Attempting to make breakfast in bed?” Niall answers. He’s standing by the stove wearing only his boxers and a snapback Conor is pretty sure is his own, though at this point he couldn’t really say either way about most of them. He doesn’t bother trying to figure out why Niall’s decided to wear a hat in the house. “But then I realised I don’t have any trays or whatever so I texted you to get your arse out here and eat these waffles.”

Conor blinks. “Save you?”

“Needed to get your attention so you’d get up,” Niall explains, shrugging.

“Breakfast in bed?”

“Seemed romantic. But I’ve got this nice floral centerpiece here, and if you think it’ll set the mood, I could light candles. Romantic candlelit breakfast, is that a thing?”

_Romantic,_ Conor’s brain centers on, and he makes a tally mark in the ‘actual boyfriends’ column that doesn’t exist in his head at all. “We could make it a thing,” he says, shuffling over to sit down at the kitchen table. Niall flashes him a grin far too blinding to handle when one has just woken up. 

Niall is actually ridiculously good at cooking--or, at least, he’s been very good at everything he’s ever made for Conor, which is maybe not the best way to judge that. In any case, Conor is pretty sure he’s ruined for all other waffles. 

And when Niall leans over to run his tongue over Conor’s upper lip to get some whipped cream off, Conor tries to follow him back across the table and abruptly realises that he might be ruined for all other people, too.

He promptly freaks out internally, because he doesn’t know if that’s _allowed_ , wanting Niall that much, and he considers leaving, maybe, because taking a moment away from Niall will surely cure him of the idea that he never wants to kiss anybody else. That is just. Blatantly untrue. There are other people Conor wants to kiss. He just can’t think of any right now, that’s all. 

“Are you all right?” Niall asks.

“Fine, yes,” Conor says quickly. “Good breakfast, didn’t know leprechauns could cook.”

Niall tilts his head and bites his lip, considering Conor carefully. “That wasn’t up to your usual snuff, you liar. Something’s bothering you.”

_Fuck._ “It’s nothing. FIFA after this?”

Niall looks like he’s considering pressing the issue, but Conor is relieved when he stands up to put their dirty dishes in the sink and says casually, “Get ready to be obliterated, Maynard.”

“You’re on, Horan.”

-

11:57 Niall Horan | _Louis what do I do if conor is actin weird_

12:05 tommo tomato | _Acting weird how ?_

12:11 Niall Horan | _idk, awkward and makin bad jokes and not payin attention t fifa. Hes lettin me beat him_

12:13 tommo tomato | _What did you do before he started acting weird ?_

12:18 Niall Horan | _Nothin! Made him breakfast?_

-

Conor fumbles his controller and kicks the ball to the other team when Niall’s phone starts ringing loudly on the bed between them, and Niall swears and hits pause on the game. “Sorry, think I need to take this,” he says, grabbing his phone and disappearing into the corridor, shutting the bedroom door behind him. 

Conor stares blankly at the door for a solid minute, wishing he’d gotten a glimpse of who had been calling Niall, and then tries to distract himself by fucking around with his game settings. It doesn’t work; he keeps obsessing over who Niall might interrupt playing FIFA to talk to and if it has anything to do with who he’d been texting--Conor assumes it does, but he can’t decide who that would be.

He briefly considers getting up and seeing if he can hear what Niall is saying through the door, and then throws that idea away in a fit of disgust with himself. He puts a tally mark in the column for ‘actually not boyfriends’ in his head just because it seems appropriate for the moment. 

By the time Niall comes back into the room, Conor has seen fit to abandon his controller altogether and is laying down with a pillow over his face. Niall sits down on the edge of the bed and attempts to pull the pillow away, but Conor clings to it. 

“Okay, Louis said I should press the issue with you, and coming back to you with a pillow over your face has pretty much sold it for me that you’re actually not fine,” Niall says. “Want to tell me what’s up now?”

_Not really,_ Conor thinks, and mumbles as much into the pillow. 

“Sorry, babe, couldn’t really hear that,” Niall says. 

Conor reluctantly moves the pillow. “Not really,” he repeats.

Niall raises an eyebrow at him. “Is this a commitment issue? Louis said I might be coming on too strong with the romantic breakfast in bed thing, so sorry if I was. I didn’t realise.”

Conor snorts. “It’s not a commitment issue.” No, Conor definitely doesn’t have any problem with committing to Niall. He just thinks--wait.

“So what _is_ the issue, then?” Niall is asking. “I won’t judge you or anything, you know that.”

“Would you want commitment?” Conor blurts out. 

Niall furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “Um, yes?”

“Why is that a question?” Conor asks, his voice going up in pitch as he panics even further. What if they’ve been going about this relationship _thing_ all wrong and neither of them have any idea what’s happening? 

Niall looks uncertain now, biting at his lip and avoiding eye contact with Conor in favour of looking at the floor. “I--uh, well... I thought we were, like, committed? Sorta? Maybe?”

Conor blinks rapidly, trying to get this through his head. He sits up so he can stare at Niall easier. “Niall, are we dating? Properly, I mean?”

“Well, I thought so!” Niall says, looking at Conor with wide eyes. “Did you not?”

Conor snorts, then breaks down into laughter. “Um, no? I didn’t?”

“Fuckin’ christ, Conor,” Niall says, but he’s laughing too. 

“Come here,” Conor says, and when Niall does, climbing up on the bed to kiss Conor properly, Conor smacks a bright green checkmark over the ‘actual boyfriends’ column in his head.

Niall doesn’t waste any time before he’s pulling at the elastic of Conor’s underwear, and Conor lifts his hips so that Niall can pull them off before wrapping his hand around Conor’s dick and smirking at him. “I think we should have our first orgasms as proper boyfriends now,” Niall says very seriously.

“Agreed,” Conor says, reaching to pull off Niall’s boxers, grabbing his snapback off his head and tossing them both across the room before flipping them so that he can sit on Niall’s lap. He reaches for Niall’s hands and laces their fingers together before pressing their joined hands into the bed and leaning down to kiss Niall. Niall opens his mouth against Conor’s easily, rolling his hips up against Conor and gasping into his mouth a bit. 

Conor lets Niall’s hand go and reaches down to wrap his hand around both their dicks, experimentally jerking them together, and Niall whimpers softly. Conor can feel them both getting harder in his hand and quickens his pace a bit, wishing idly that he had lube but way too busy to bother actually moving anywhere to get some.

“Come _on_ ,” Niall says, trying his best to pull his hand free of Conor’s.

“Pushy,” Conor mutters, letting him go and using his now free hand to press Niall down into the bed, while Niall reaches out with his own to grab at Conor’s hips. Conor bites his lip at the feel of Niall’s fingernails digging into his skin and shoves down against Niall hard, forcing them both into his hand and drawing moans out of both their mouths. 

They work up a steady rhythm from there, settling into it in a way that can only be perfected by practice, and Conor can’t help but press kisses against Niall’s lips, his jaw, down across his neck and up again. This is _his_ , now; he’s allowed to want Niall to himself, and he sucks a love bite to the place just behind Niall’s ear where his hairline begins. 

“Don’t leave _marks_ ,” Niall complains, but he doesn’t exactly succeed in coming off as annoyed when he’s as turned on as he is. Conor grins lazily at him and leans in to kiss him again as he slows the movement of his hand down and then takes it away entirely to grasp at Niall’s hands again, and they roll their hips slowly together, grinning against each other’s mouths.

Conor’s orgasm blindsides him, creeping up and crashing into him, leaving him gasping into Niall’s shoulder, blurry vision turning the planes of his skin into iridescent sheen against the clean white sheets, and Niall isn’t far behind him, his grip on Conor’s hands tightening to almost unbearable levels before it goes slack. 

“I don’t ever want to move again,” Niall says a moment later, voicing Conor’s exact thoughts. “But I’m fuckin’ covered in come.” 

Conor giggles into the pillow because he can’t help it. “Me too,” he says, gesturing at both their stomachs. “Ugh.”

“Boyfriend sex is better than whatever it was before, though,” Niall decides, sitting up. “Come on, let’s have a boyfriend shower.”

“Are you planning to refer to everything as being specifically _boyfriend_ now?” Conor asks wryly. He manages to roll over to his back even though his muscles still feel like boiled spaghetti. 

Niall doesn’t answer, just turns to grin at Conor and start singing at him. “ _Now that I’m your boyfriend, never let you go, keep you on my arm, boy--”_

“Shut _up_ ,” Conor interrupts, throwing a pillow at Niall’s head, and Niall ducks out of the way, cackling gleefully as he bounces off the bed. 

-

13:14 tommo tomato | _Everything alright ?_

16:32 tommo tomato | _Fancy dinner with me and Eleanor ? :)_

16:40 Niall Horan | _Sure! Will bring my boyfriend haha_

-

_fin._


End file.
